Board weighs bill to resurrect redevelopment functions

Riverside County supervisors are set to discuss Tuesday whether the county should back legislation that would empower local governments to finance public works projects in the wake of last year's dismantling of redevelopment agencies.

Supervisor John Tavaglione wants the Board of Supervisors to endorse Senate Bill 33, which would make it easier for counties and cities to take advantage of a tool already available to them: something called the infrastructure financing district.

Like the abolished redevelopment agencies, districts can be used to finance construction of such infrastructure as roads by borrowing against anticipated future increases in property-tax revenue in areas where projects are undertaken. But under existing law, two-thirds voter approval is required to form districts and sell bonds ---- a difficult bar to reach.

The bill by Sen. Lois Wolk, D-Davis, would eliminate the voter approval requirement. And it would let local governments borrow against future "tax increment" revenue for as long as 40 years. The maximum pay-back period now is 30 years.

The legislation cleared the Senate 24-13 on April 11 and is awaiting action in the Assembly.

County supervisors talked about the bill last week without reaching a decision. They also heard from a couple of Southwest County activists who urged the board not to endorse it, charging that supervisors were simply looking for a way to revive redevelopment.

"This program is just another line of RDA,” said Meadowbrook resident Garry Grant, referring to now-defunct redevelopment agencies. “And I feel that the acronym for this should be Infrastructure For Developers.”

Paul Jacobs, a recent unsuccessful candidate for the Temecula City Council, offered similar perspective.

“This is nothing more than an attempt to re-create the RDA program of taking on public debt for private developers,” Jacobs said.

He said redevelopment was abolished because it wasn't just used to eliminate blighted conditions in run-down communities; in some places, it was used to help finance shiny new commercial developments.

“The reason RDA was dismantled is because it was abused as a welfare program for developers,” Jacobs said. “IFD at least approaches truth in advertising, if you call it infrastructure for developers, as Garry Grant suggested, rather than an infrastructure financing district. An IFD will capture tax increment revenue in the same way that RDAs did.”

And with the 10-year-longer pay-back period, he said it will burden communities with mountains of debt for many decades.

“Borrowing against future tax revenue puts the county on a financial treadmill,” Jacobs said. “But instead of having a trimming effect, the budget just gets more bloated.”

Tavaglione acknowledged the motivation for the legislation is redevelopment's demise.

“Yes, it is a vehicle in which to replace much that was lost to redevelopment," he said.

And, yes, Tavaglione said, redevelopment was abused throughout the state, in being used to finance football stadiums, auto malls and other major commercial ventures.

“But in Riverside County much of the redevelopment that we did was for infrastructure ---- flood control channels, landscaping, curbs and gutter, sidewalks ---- stuff in unincorporated areas that we just had no means in which to build,” Tavaglione said.